PHASE 4
Q: How will I authentically investigate and become more deeply aware of the issues I care about?
The AWARE phase of the Empathy to Impact framework zooms in on a specific problem, its impact, its causes, and the various challenges that contribute to the problem’s existence or continued development. This phase requires real-world application of skills such as observation, interview question design, active listening, and systems thinking. The goal of this phase is for students to identify a real (not assumed) need in a community or context and to focus on one or two specific causes with a community partner or expert. This becomes the student’s foundation for planning sustainable action steps. Most critically, this can be done while teaching our mini-lessons, developing skills, and exploring your learning outcomes more effectively while also developing a deeper understanding of the identified local or global issue
Detail of the “Aware” component in the Empathy to Impact visual framework, representing inquiry, research, systems thinking, and analysis of root causes in real-world issues.
AWARE Steps:
Step 1: Revisit the “why” of the unit that you identified in CARE or the community or environmental problem that you’d like to address in your unit or learning experience. State the specific problem as a statement, gather feedback, and then redraft it as an inquiry question.
Step 2: Identify an investigation strategy that you might use to more deeply understand the issue
Conduct an interview (engaging questions + active listening)
Explore diverse media sources
Conduct an observation (AEIOU protocol).
Survey relevant stakeholders
Conduct a site visit
Collect relevant data
Use a systems-thinking tool or a root cause analysis to unpack the issue.
Use photography to explore environments
Prepare for community or expert interviews by designing questions and practicing respectful dialogue
Considerations for Co-Curricular or Experiential Learning Circumstances
When connecting to curriculum, it is important to choose the right investigation strategies that align with mini-lessons or skills development lessons in the earlier part of the learning journey.
When working with student clubs, student leadership groups, after-school activities, or advisory programs, there may be a particular skill that students are trying to develop, but there may not be a specific learning outcome or key skill we’re trying to align with. Regardless, what is most critical is that students deepen their understanding.
Many student groups jump straight to action without spending time listening to a partner, building relationships, conducting site visits, interviewing people who have been affected, running surveys to explore whether their proposed actions will be effective, or identifying what the actual needs or opportunities are in the community.
In all co-curricular experiences, it is critical that we guide students toward investigation strategies and help them understand that there can be no impactful action without deep investigation. Students should not move toward action unless they have taken time to unpack and explore the issue with depth—ensuring they are not causing unintended harm and are engaging in meaningful, respectful, and reciprocal impact projects.
In experiential learning contexts, this is equally important. When going on a trip, students are often brought to a location or museum to listen to a speaker. But what is often overlooked is the opportunity to equip students with the skills to investigate within a new geographical or sociocultural context.
For example, on an experiential learning trip, we could:
• Use photography to conduct site visits connected to a guiding goal or inquiry question.
• Practice communication skills and develop effective questioning techniques to engage effectively across sociocultural or socioeconomic differences.
• Integrate interviews and community connections into the itinerary to deepen learning and relevance.
• Engage in pre-learning through investigation strategies to build context and understanding before the trip even begins.
Using investigation effectively in co-curricular and experiential learning contexts is key to cultivating a deep, meaningful experience and building authentic collaboration.
Explore the “AWARE” resources
Choose one or two tools from this resource page that can enhance the critical thinking and research skills needed in this transformative learning experience.
Remember that when used in curricular contexts, these tools should help to level up an existing skill, support an existing mini-lesson, or allow students to engage with the real world while developing necessary knowledge, skills, and understandings.
Critical Media Literacy
The explosion in information has presented a major challenge to the world of formal education. For centuries, schooling has been designed to make sure students learned facts about the world, which they proved they knew by correctly answering questions on tests. But such a system is no longer relevant when the most up-to-date facts are available at the touch of a button.
What students need today is to learn how to find what they need to know when they need to know it, from the best sources available— and to have the higher-order thinking skills to analyze and evaluate whether the information they find is useful for what they want to know and do.
Related resources:
Observation and Intercultural Understanding
AEIOU provides a template for observing contextual inquiries and collecting qualitative data. This heuristic framework provides an observation technique used to document contextual inquiries during ethnographic studies.
The Cultural Iceberg helps us understand that when one first enters a new culture, only the most overt behaviors are apparent. As one spends more time in that new culture, the underlying beliefs, values, and thought patterns that dictate that behavior will be uncovered. What this model teaches us is that we cannot judge a new culture based only on what we see when we first enter it. We must take the time to get to know individuals from that culture and interact with them. Only by doing so can we uncover the values and beliefs that underlie the behavior of that society.
Related resources:
Active Listening and Interviewing
Active listening is a foundational skill in developing empathy for others, identifying successes and challenges in a community, and developing deeper, trusting, and reciprocal relationships with diverse community members.
Utilizing questioning strategies, such as Thinking Like a Historian, to construct follow-up questions that elicit open and transparent answers, leads to compassionate conversations, meaningful storytelling, and intercultural understanding.
Explore the overlooked benefits of pushing past our default discomfort when it comes to strangers and embracing those fleeting but profoundly beautiful moments of genuine connection. Through interviews and conversations, we can make more space for change.
Related resources:
Needs Analysis & Mapping Systems
Construct a root cause tree or fishbone diagram
for analyzing the sources or causes of an event or issue.
A root cause analysis is a systematic process used to identify the underlying causes of a problem or incident, rather than simply addressing its symptoms. The goal is to find out why a problem happened so that effective solutions can be implemented to prevent it from happening again.
Related resources:
Data Literacy and Graphicacy
Data is everywhere. Collected, stored, open for the taking. Yet most of our society, workforce, and students aren’t equipped with the best analytical toolkit to take in and process all this information.
For example, Charts, infographics, and diagrams are ubiquitous because they can reveal patterns and trends hidden behind the numbers we encounter in our lives. Good charts make us smarter—if we know how to read them.
However, they can also deceive us. Charts can mislead in a variety of ways, including displaying incomplete or inaccurate data, suggesting misleading patterns, and concealing uncertainty— or are frequently misunderstood. Many of us are ill-equipped to interpret the visuals that politicians, journalists, advertisers, and even our employers present each day.
Related resources:
Deep Reading
Resources like Notice and Note introduce strategies and “signposts” that alert readers to significant moments in a work of literature and encourage close reading. This helps create attentive readers who look closely at a text, interpret it responsibly and rigorously, and reflect on what it means to them. Literature, when richly comprehended, enhances thinking, learning, and expanding a reader’s knowledge and horizons.
Related resources:
Further Reflection:
What research skills are at the heart of my inquiry and discovery?
“AWARE” in action!
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With the support of Inspire Citizens, specifically Aaron Moniz, the team found the guidance they needed to refine their approach to service, build a strong framework, and ensure that their work was truly impactful. What followed was an inspiring journey that connected students with… (Read more…)
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“The students recorded their interviews and shared them with the class,” explains Pre-Kindergarten teacher Juanita Carvajales. “We noted themes that emerged in interviews with the grandparents such as traditional games they used to play like 'Mariamandunga,' typical to the Colombian coast. Then we found those games and showed them to the children and they were able to play them.” (Read more…)